EDWARD CLINE: GUN CONTROL….LEXINGTON GREEN ARISING

Barack Hussein Obama was no sooner elected than his propaganda vehicles were loosened on the nation. In my column, “Obama’s Anti-Absolutism Club” article, in which I demonstrate just how smitten the Mainstream Media are with Obama, what I could also have highlighted was the lengths to which the MSM will go in the way of excuses, covering up his failures and the peril he poses to the nation as a wannabe tyrant, and just plain forgiving him for his executive trespasses and crimes (all done in the name of “progress” and “moving forward”).

It would have been neatly just to compare the MSM with that instance of brainwashing and indoctrination in schools, when a class of grade school children was taught to sing his praises. Remember the scandal that erupted when people learned about the class chanting, “Barack Hussein Obama! Um, um, um!” and so on?

That’s the MSM. Substitute full-grown adults for the kids and different lyrics and a journalistic snapping of fingers, and you have the character and substance of the left/liberal news media. In a nutshell.

The subject here is how the MSM, Obama, and Congress wish to ban guns – “assault” weapons, pistols, anything private citizens could own and use to defend their lives and homes against predators, rapists, murderers, burglars, and even government agents – in the name of “public safety.” That desire is nearly synonymous with the policy the British tried to enforce in the 1770’s in the American colonies. Those who remember their American history will recall that when some 700 British soldiers marched out of Boston in April 1775, their purpose was to find, seize, or destroy the colonials’ caches of gunsand powder to better ensure that the colonials had no means to resist or threaten the Crown’s occupation of the city and its environs.

Paul Revere and others rode out to the towns and hamlets outside Boston to warn them of the approaching menace. Citizens’ militias quickly assembled to oppose the soldiers. About sixty of them encountered the army on Lexington Green on April 19th. A shot was fired – one that was heard “round the world,” and no one knows from which side it came, and it hardly matters now, because the militia stood its ground and wasn’t about to disperse on command from the British officer in charge. The militia opened up, and the British fired four volleys in return, killing eight of the militia. The outnumbered militia was routed. On their way back to Boston after failing to find the caches of guns and powder, the British were mercilessly harried by other militias – composed of farmers, coopers, tradesmen, blacksmiths, and even freed blacks – leaving behind scores of dead and wounded on the twenty mile march back to safety.

While most rebelling colonials owned or used old British muskets from the Seven Years’ War and French-made muskets, which the British unsuccessfully tried to ban from importation, the most deadly weapon in Americans’ hands was the Kentucky or Pennsylvania rifle. Muskets employed “smooth bore” barrels which did not control the trajectory of the ball blasted from them. Aiming a musket and hitting a target was a haphazard affair. This is why both American and British forces (and later the French, when they entered the fray) would line up in columns against each other and fire volleys en masse, counting not on accuracy but on numbers to cause casualties on the opposing side. Too often a ball leaving the barrel would not fly straight ahead, but alter course left or right.

However, the most feared weapon in British hands, from the Americans’ standpoint, was not the Brown Bess musket, but the bayonet at close quarters. Most colonial muskets and rifles were not designed to accommodate bayonets. When the British finally ascended Bunker and Breed’s Hills after sustaining horrific losses (some 1,500, especially among officers) in three assaults in June of 1775, most of the American casualties (some 450) were bayoneted to death.

Rifles, on the other hand, employed grooved barrels that more accurately directed the ball at a target. It flew flawlessly in a straight line at a greater range, up to 500 yards. American snipers using rifles killed or wounded many especially British officers. Throughout the ensuing war and fight for independence, British military policy was to immediately execute any captured American using a rifle by hanging or firing squad.

Rifles, however, were just as slow-loading as were muskets. The “bullet” had to be assembled quickly with powder, paper, and ball; pre-packaged cartridges and rifles that could accommodate them were not in common use until long after the Revolution. Assembling a bullet took almost as much time as frying a couple of eggs. The standard time which trained and drilled British soldiers took to fire and reload was about four shots a minute. Their Prussian allies boasted of six. Moreover, rifles needed more maintenance and care than did muskets. As with “guns” – that is, with cannon on land and sea – they needed to be swabbed and dried before preparing the next shot, because embers would remain in the grooves or powder pans and cause premature firing. Rifles were put on equal par with muskets in any close engagement between American and British forces. Their effectiveness was reserved to snipers or flankers on the sides of a main army.

“Assault” weapons, particularly those with multi-cartridge clips, are the new “rifle” feared by gun-control advocates, and, of course, by the government. “Assault” weapons put a civilian on nearly equal terms in the way of fire power. However, in any engagement between Americans fighting for their liberty and government forces- local, state, or federal – civilians will still be at a distinct disadvantage. SUVs and Mercedes cars and even Hummers are no match for armored vehicles equipped with considerably more fire power, nor will impromptu civilian militias be a match for trained SWAT teams and the like. But, nonetheless, such confrontations may still occur. That is the mood of the country.

Sheriffs and other law enforcement personnel around the country are advising citizens to refuse to surrender their guns to federal authorities, and even advising them to purchase them now and learnhow to use them. Otherlaw enforcement people and state legislators are vowing to oppose any federal gun controls that may be legislated (or dictated by Obama via “executive order”) and threatening to arrest any federal official or officer trying to seize, confiscate, or control private weapons. Their statements are based on a reverence for the Constitution – particularly the Second Amendment -completely lacking in the White House, Congress, and the MSM.

Following Oregon Sheriff Tim Mueller’s lead, three more Sheriffs in parts of Oregon announced Wednesday in letters to U.S. Vice President Joe Biden that they would refuse to enforce any federal gun laws that are unconstitutional.

Crook County Sheriff Jim Hensley local reporters, “I’m going to follow my oath that I took as Sheriff to support the constitution.” “I believe strongly in the Second Amendment,” Hensley added, urging “If the federal government comes into Crook County and wants to take firearms and things away from (citizens), I’m going to tell them it’s not going that way.”

Minnesota, Pine County Sheriff Robin Cole wrote an open letter to his residents to inform them that he does not accept that the federal government supersedes State authorities when it comes to regulation of firearms. “I do not believe the federal government or any individual in the federal government has the right to dictate to the states, counties or municipalities any mandate, regulation or administrative rule that violates the United States Constitution or its various amendments.” Cole wrote.

Cole said that the right to bear arms is “fundamental to our individual freedoms and that firearms are part of life in our country.”

Even in liberal New York, gun-owners, stung by the JournalNews stunt of publishing a map of legal gun-owners, are vowing never to register or surrender their weapons to the federal government.

Now, in what is sure to be a growing trend across the entire country, New York gun owners are organizing a resistance against what many believe to be the most, “brazen infringement on the right to keep and bear arms anywhere in the nation,”according to The New American:

Preparations are already being made for mass resistance. “I’ve heard from hundreds of people that they’re prepared to defy the law, and that number will be magnified by the thousands, by the tens of thousands, when the registration deadline comes,”said President Brian Olesen with American Shooters Supply, among the biggest gun dealers in the state, in an interview with the New York Post.

Even government officials admit that forcing New Yorkers to register their guns will be a tough sell, and they are apparently aware that massive non-compliance will be the order of the day. “Many of these assault-rifle owners aren’t going to register; we realize that,” a source in the Cuomo administration told the Post, adding that officials expect “widespread violations” of the new statute.

However, Senator (“Ma’am”) Dianne Feinsteinis determined that the nation shall bow. She has introduced gun-control legislation in the Senate that conforms to Obama’s rhetorical emotionalism about guns.

In January, Senator Feinstein will introduce a bill to stop the sale, transfer, importation and manufacturing of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition feeding devices.

Feinstein misses the point: Any weapon – revolver, Colt or Mauser type pistols with ammo clips, hunting rifles, shotguns, and so on – can be used “military-style” in any conflict between men. The rapidity and efficiency with which such weapons can be loaded and fired are irrelevant. Reducing an ammo clip to nine rounds from twenty is futile; more ammo clips would just be needed to be carried and handy in such engagements. That may or may not work to the disadvantage of a “new rebel,” and that is also irrelevant.

The whole thrust of Feinstein’s bill is to further disarm Americans as a first step to disarming them completely and permanently, so that they would need to resort to bows and arrows, rocks, and rubber bands. Such a move will be touted as being for their own good, for the “public good.”

Is America edging closer to another Lexington Green? Time will tell. Americans are beginning to stand their ground. Will it be a war, or a civil war? If armed conflict occurs between Americans and their government, where will it begin? And when? Will such a conflict be premature, timely, or too late? Whatever the scenario, it would be good to remember Captain John Parker’simmortal words at Lexington Green, words that were also “heard round the world”:

“Stand your ground! Don’t fire until fired upon! But if they want to have a war, let it begin here!”

Edward Cline is the author of the Sparrowhawk novels set in England and Virginia in the pre-Revolutionary period, of several detective and suspense novels, and three collections of his commentaries and columns, all available on Amazon Books. His essays, book reviews, and other articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, the Journal of Information Ethics and other publications. He is a frequent contributor to Rule of Reason, Family Security Matters, Capitalism Magazine and other Web publications.